Seven Secrets to Permanent Language Learning

1. Study With Both Slow and Normal Speed Audio

When you learned your first language, your brain built filters that automatically filter out sounds that aren’t in your native language.

These filters can make it easy to hear your name in a noisy room. Unfortunately, they also make it hard to distinguish new sounds when you are trying to learn Russian, or perhaps learn Spanish. Any language with sounds that are new to you will be hard at first.

Language101.com solves this problem by providing sound clips played at both slow and normal speeds.

Click this button to hear “How are you?” in French. Try saying the phrase aloud.

Did that seem too fast? Well, that is normal speed for Paris, but it may be too fast for you at first.

Here’s the same French phrase, much slower this time.

Isn’t that easier to hear?

All of the phrases and words on Language101.com are recorded this way. You can listen to the slow recordings and move on to the fast ones when you are ready.

Language101.com’s dual-speed system gives you the assistance and flexibility you need for successful language learning.

2. Learn Phrase by Phrase — Not Word by Word

Many foreign-language learning programs give beginners a list of simple words to memorize. This is boring and ineffective. Instead, start by learning complete, useful phrases like “What’s your name?” Language101.com programs let users select lessons at the right level of difficulty for them.

3. Review at Time Intervals That Increase

Fun fact: if you rapidly review a phrase one hundred times, your brain treats this as only one review! Don’t waste your time on that.

Fortunately, Language101.com programs prompt you to review a phrase periodically. The time intervals between reviews quickly grow from seconds to weeks and months. It’s a very efficient way to learn — and retain — a foreign language. You learn very quickly, and you waste no time reviewing what you already know.

4. Learn What You Love First

Choose a topic that you are passionate about. That’s what you should learn first in your new language! Why start with boring lessons when you could be learning how to talk about something that you love?

Language101.com programs let you select lessons in the order that is right for you. We can even customize lessons for you if your favorite topic is not already provided.

5. Don’t Study Grammar Unless You Love It

Face it, if you hated studying English grammar, you will probably hate studying Russian grammar, or French grammar, or German grammar, etc., etc. That’s why Langauge101.com programs instead focus on teaching you how to speak in complete sentences. However, grammar lovers will also enjoy Language101.com special packages, customized to suit your interests.

6. Act Like a Toddler (Sort of)

Two-year-olds aren’t embarrassed about their language mistakes, and you shouldn’t be either. Look for native speakers to try and talk to.

Learn to say something nice in your new language about the country that speaks it. For example, if you are learning French, learn to say, “I love France” in French.

After you say that, all of your language mistakes will be forgiven.

7. Sign Up With Language101.com Now!

Think about this fact: nothing ever gets done tomorrow. The only time that anything ever gets done is now.

I’ve started reading the articles on your site, and appreciate your insights. Just a thought on Arabic, since it was suggested above. I gather from your responses that Arabic is not your primary focus at the moment, but when you do develop an Arabic program, I would recommend in the strongest possible terms avoiding teaching Modern Standard Arabic. Most serious learners of Arabic will tell you that it is practically useless for almost anything except listening to formal speeches or the news. I found this out the hard way when, after 2 years of studying Modern Standard Arabic, I stepped off a bus in Cairo and found that I could read some road signs, but could not understand a word anyone was saying, and that when I spoke, though I was understood, I began to realize that what I had learned was markedly different from what anyone else was using. It was as though I had signed up for a course in Spanish, and ended up learning interlingua instead–something that communicates, but that in terms of fluency is a dead end.

If you do decide to move forward with designing an Arabic program (which I highly recommend)I’d recommend putting together a program that teaches one of the major spoken dialects of Arabic: Levantine Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Gulf Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, or one of the others. If you take this approach, your program will have two significant advantages over all major competitors: (1) teaching a language that you can actually speak with another person, and (2) being one of the few courses on one of the dialects that can easily be found.

Of course, I may be jumping the gun–Arabic may not be on your list for a while. But when it is, I’d recommend taking a cue from Pimsleur (which currently offers Levantine (they call it Eastern) and Egyptian varieties of Arabic in addition to MSA). My recommendation: cut out the middle. Since your approach is focused on getting people speaking, rather than teaching grammar, skip offering MSA and go straight to one of the dialects.

Thanks for hearing out my rant, and I wish you well in your endeavors!

Thank you! It’s enthusiastic feedback like yours that gets our software developed to being the best available. I will add your comments to the development team’s review sheet for consideration and discussion.

What you say is absolutely true.
Arabic MSA is a formal language. It can be understood by the whole Arabic World from Morocco to Iran, if the person you are talking to went to school.
With MSA you can read newspapers, understand news and most of series/movies…
But….
But you can’t communicate with poeple in the street!!
You need to learn the dialect from the country.
The 2 “dialects” that can be quite understood in north Africa are Morrocian and Egyptian.
But they are difficult to teach, because there are no “official script”. You will have to use MSA or Romance letters to transcript them.
And there are many sounds that don’t exist in Romancian languages!! ج، ق، ظ، غ… And so on….
We usually use numbers (7, 3….).

If you would start a Japanese program, I would definitely sign up. By the way, would you recommend listening to children’s songs or watching children’s shows in the language you are trying to learn without subtitles? I heard this can help with understanding native speakers. I also heard that trying to sing along with the children’s songs (listen and repeat kind of deal) would help with pronunciation. Is that true?

We are currently working on Japanese and intend to have it finished soon! Look for an announcement on our home page.

The challenge with subtitles is that the brain can only process one of the inputs at a time. Either you are listening to the speaker or reading the words, only a truly bilingual person can process both parts of the information at once because they actually THINK in both languages.

Anything you can do that will create a spoken effort to duplicate what you hear will help you learn a language. The pronunciation can sometimes be trickier than understanding the translated meanings. Keep practicing in everything that you do and that way you are keeping your edge nice and sharp!

Japanese is a special case in subtitling, though–since its written system is vastly different from your native language, it’s easy to disregard the subtitles when you’re starting out, lol. Conversely, when your ear becomes used to hearing spoken Japanese, subtitles can be a good way to help increase your reading speed–and once you’ve studied the language long enough, both of them in conjunction will help you understand just as much as turning on the subtitles in your native language does! I’ve been speaking Japanese for 10 years, but I always leave the Japanese subtitles on when playing video games and watching movies, to help pick up kanji.

Thanks for sharing your experience with Japanese! We agree that learning the Kanji can be extraordinarily helpful, especially when traveling where someone might need to read a sign, menu, or other instruction. That’s why Language101.com is working on the best Japanese language learning tool offered to date! We look forwards to our upcoming release of Japanese.

Thomas

November 27, 2010

NATHAN PARKER

I saw above that you are looking to add Italian. Do you have any idea when this might be available? I will be heading over to Italy in September and would really like a shot at being comfortable with at least the basics.

While I came here originally to read reviews of Rosetta Stone & Pimsleur, so that I could choose a method of learning French, I’m a bit interested in Swedish, admittedly mostly because I bought two Volvos last year. I roll.

I am super excited about learning swedish too!
I’ve learned the basics and can have conversations with swedish friends, but I just want to keep learning while I am here in america!
How serious are you about coming up with a swedish program?

Your enthusiasm for Swedish is just what we need from more people in order to have the support to develop it. Swedish is in the list of languages to develop yet it needs more support from people like you in order to move up the priority list and get to the top. If you need to learn Swedish before we can get it developed I highly recommend checking out the Pimsleur method available here:

Thank you for keeping the excitement high for Greek! It’s still a long ways off as we are currently working with three new languages before considering the next! Do check into the Pimsleur review if learning Greek is something that you want to do for yourself right away!

Thanks for inquiring about our upcoming languages! Italian is just about finished, we’re working on tying together the last bits now. Mandarin Chinese is planned to be released this coming year. I’ll be able to share more about the proposed timeframe as the project moves forwards. When we get Chinese finished I will be sure to send everyone who expresses interest an email.

Have 4 adopted Chinese children. Plan to spend a year in China teaching English (sometime in the next 4 years). I would LOVE to have Mandarin Chinese lessons. Please add me to your list!! Two of my adopted children have also expressed interest in “Relearning” their native language. They all lost their native language because of not having anyone to keep using it with!

Once you start figuring out the timeframe I would love to hear when the Japanese might be done! I had started learning it with another program but I didn’t like how it was going. You’re program seems to hold much more promise! Can’t wait

Please consider Korean Language as well. My wife and I work for hospitality industry here in Hawaii and have been encountering a lot of Korean tourist visiting the island. It would be nice to converse with them in their native language. For now, we’re learning by watching their TV shows; picking words and phrases here and there but not sufficient for conversation. I emplore you again to please consider including the Korean language. Thank you!

Thanks for expressing your desire to learn Korean! Sounds like you have a great start on learning the vocabulary. I highly recommend taking a read through the Pimsleur review as it is an excellent way to pick up phrases to integrate the vocabulary.

I’d like to express my interest in the Korean language as well! Self teaching with “meh” products isn’t getting me very far. There’s only so much of looking up words on Google that I encounter in kpop songs! :) PLEASE! Koreans talk so quickly that I can’t quite pick up all the sounds…

Yes! I know other languages are being worked on first but I would absolutely love if you had Korean lessons as well! A lot of language programs have Chinese and sometimes Japanese, but Korean always seems to get left out. My husband is Korean but cannot speak the language; I’ve been wanting to learn it for a long time (have been slowly trying to self-teach over the years) and I want to be able to teach my kids someday as well.

Thanks for insisting on Korean. It’s comments like this that help us negotiate how to focus on our upcoming language developments! We are working on a Korean language version. It’s still in the founding stages so I can’t offer a timeframe for release. Just know that it is expected sometime after Mandarin is released.

Are you also working on making a modern Hindi program? Punjabi would be even better, my husband is Punjabi and his whole family speaks Punjabi at home. I need to learn Punjabi and then also Hindi so I can converse with his family and then visiting friends on our annual visits to India. I can’t wait till I can be a part of the conversations.

We have quite a few languages in the labs being developed presently. Hindi or Punjabi are still in the list of languages we are considering once we get some of the other ones released. Having someone in your life who can at least speak with you in his native tongue is a blessing. You likely already have a strong understanding of his body language which will give you clues into what his words mean. Starting small with introductions and simple requests is a great way to begin learning your husband’s language. Go through one of the demo lessons to get ideas on how he could more effectively communicate small things and then you can build from there.

I have used the “Living Language” courses for Italian, German & French. For Norwegian I used the Pimsleur and really liked it, but unfortunately it was only 30 lessons, instead of the other full programs approx 90 lessons. I have been contemplating purchasing the full Pimsleur programs to brush up my Italian, French, German, and Russian (Russian experience = first year university), and planned to add Spanish Pimsleur later.

The ‘combo’ purchase from Language 101 which includes several languages + additional in the future, looks very attractive. However, you can understand my concern at such a committment.

My posiiton re Language101 is as follows. I know that for me Pimsleur is ‘fail-safe’! but, can I believe the same re Language101 ?

Thanks for expressing your concern for switching from Pimsleur to Language101.com! Did you know that Language101.com was developed from a desire to bring the Pimsleur learning technology into present day technological advantage? Pimsleur was great 30 and forty years ago when tape recording technology was new and fresh. Now that we have advanced software engines which can be programmed to endless possibilities that same idea, spaced repetition, can be advanced upon with much success! This is what Language101.com has done.

Language101.com has taken the concept of spaced repetition and added something spectacular to it – user interface to best determine what phrases to repeat and how frequently to bring them to the surface. In this way your learning style can be compensated for and given special treatment. Maybe you excel at memorizing questions. Do you really want to study all of the questions you know very very well at the same rate as the responses you are struggling with? That builds frustration and resent for the learning session – who wants to waste their time studying something they already know?

In order to best quell the fear of ‘what if this doesn’t work for me’ Language101.com stands beside a 6 month unconditional money back guarantee. If at any point within 6 months of your package purchase you are dissatisfied simply request a refund. You’ll know within a few weeks if the system is working for you.

Pimsleur was great and is the best option for learning languages Language101.com has yet to develop. Language101.com has the most effective language learning tool on the market.

Seems you have a great handle on the basics of the language. From the place you are at now (assuming the phrase above is something you typed directly) visiting an English speaking place where your native (or other familiar) languages will be seldomly heard would be best. Immerse yourself in English, convince your mind it is necessary for survival and comfort to learn. It will come. A month is a rather short time to ‘learn’ any language.

Can you design a program for cherokee? I would like to learn it, so I can help the reservation elders with more than cooking cleaning and checkers. I have tried to learn through the elders but they do not speak english ; therefore, I have never been able to determin what they are saying to me. Ha Ha! at least we have fun playing checkers.

Language101.com is more than happy to assist you in systematically creating a personalized version of the software for preservation of languages. Please contact us at support@language101.com for more information.

Such enthusiasm! This is just what helps us continue to develop new languages such as Mandarin Chinese. We are currently working on this language and look forwards to the day we can offer it as one of our new packages.

Pimsleur is a great tool, albeit a little boring and hard to manage for each person’s unique learning curve. If you need to study Mandarin Chinese right away I highly recommend going with them. It’s the best bet for immediate pro-active language development.

I’ve been researching different avenues for learning several languages and I love your website. Originally I was just thinking about learning Spanish so I tried the sample lessons you offer. I realized that since I already had about two years of Spanish at college that I needed to try another language that I thought was much more difficult to get a real understanding of how your program could help me learn. I’ve always thought French to be difficult and when in French Polynesia I was COMPLETELY LOST as far as the language went (luckily I knew a few simple phrases/words in Tahitian so I could at least be polite). I tried the French sample lessons and after I was speaking and understanding French! It’s made me realize that I can and want to learn many other language, which brings me to my point. Please add Swedish. I understand that developing a language program takes time, but I’m hoping by the time I’ve gone through Spanish, French, Italian, and Russian (at least!) you’ll have a Swedish program ready to go.

Thanks for sharing your story about trying Language101.com with a new and challenging language for yourself! It’s always good to hear about how well the software works for people. Swedish is a Germanic language and you may find that learning German is a great step in the direction to learning Swedish. There are some notable differences as they are different languages. It sounds like you have a pretty strong desire to learn several languages though. German, Dutch and Swedish are all similar enough that learning one makes learning another rather easy for minds that grasp languages rapidly. Thanks for chiming in for use to offer Swedish. Its in the pool of languages to consider for development in the future! We just need enough support for it to rise to the top of the list.

I believe that Americans should all be taught several languages concurrently, as is done in Europe. They do it out of necessity due to the various countries being so close together and travel from one to the other is common place. With international travel no longer being a major effort, as was the case before the 70’s, there is really no reason that we shouldn’t learn several common languages, if only to earn the respect of other folks for at least trying to speak in their language. (Just try using a small amount of French in Paris and see how much better they treat you!)

This brings me to a personal reason that is far different from others formerly posted; brain damage! Learing Vietnamese, when in country in the 60’s wasn’t too difficult, though we were all a lot younger and able to learn far more readily. However, after suffering some memory loss because of a major accident, that knowledge has been “erased”(?) and re-learning it would be welcome way to help recover other “lost” memories of a long past youth. In the past it was literally “learning under fire”. A less stressful way would be most welcome at this point in time. Please, consider adding Vietnamese and maybe Thai to your list.

Thanks for your support in offering that Americans need to learn more than one language in their educational upbringing. It is a very important step in realizing a more global community to learn how to communicate with our neighbors. Only when we understand what they are saying can we be more compassionate with how they are behaving towards us. Miscommunication is a huge factor in the global political arena and the force of an entire nation pushing towards a resolution will be much more unifying if everyone is on the same page.

I’m sorry to hear about your brain damage and the loss of memories associated with it. I hope that in your pursuit to learn vietnamese you are able to recover some of those youthful memories as well! I’ll let you know as soon as Vietnamese makes it into the development labs and is ready for release!

Thanks for inquiring about our Japanese developments. We are still working on it and hope to have it completed soon. I wish I could be more precise though there are some things that just need to be worked on until they work, ya know? :) We’ll make an announcement when the first lessons are ready for use!

I really enjoy reading your articles. I have been learning Ukrainian over the past year with a tutor and it has been a real struggle for me. I am very interested in your product but you do not offer ukrainian on your website. Is that something u may have in the future?

Thanks for asking about Ukranian. We are currently developing Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and a host of English as a second language offerings. I’m sure one day Ukranian will be in the development labs too! Did you know that Ukranian and Russian are very similar? Check out these two links to learn how to discern the differences. Maybe learning Russian is all you need for now!

Thanks for expressing your enthusiasm for learning Hebrew and Arabic! We definitely intend to add more languages along the way! We’ll be exploring which ones to develop next right after we finish with Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and the ESL courses we are preparing!

Hello! I found this website through my friend who is studying languages with me. I found many usefull tips and tricks here! Thank you!

I just began studying Russian, and I have taken traditional Spanish classes as a school requirement for the past two years. The classes are very slow! However, I am thinking I will try to use some of your tricks here for better recollection of the words, and maybe be able to speak it a bit better.

The articles on learning have helped me structure my own studing methods as well.

I would like to learn Swedish, Romanian, and Greek eventually! Is it possible that they will be added in the future?
Do you have any suggestions that might help in Russian studies? I do not always have internet access, but I do have a lot of time. Is there anything that I could read or listen to as a downloadable mp3 that would help?

Thank you again for all your time for this website, I found it very helpful!

Glad to hear the software Language101.com provides is a great tool for you! It always pleases us to hear about how much joy people get from finding out about us.

The best way to learn more Russian would be to start viewing more Russian language media – books, videos, newspapers, magazines, etc. Once you know the character set you’ll have a foundation to spring from. Make sure to read through all the articles here:

One of the best partners for learning any language more rapidly is to record your own voice speaking the language and listen to it, repeating each phrase. You can record the phrases from your Russian Language101.com lessons for study when you aren’t near your Internet connection.

We don’t have immediate plans for adding Swedish, Romanian or Greek at this time. We are currently working on Mandarin Chinese and Japanese as well as a bunch of ESL courses. We’ll be making an announcement on what languages we’ll be developing next once we get those ready for release.

Is there an update on the Japanese program? Besides waiting with baited breath for this new opportunity I do have several questions about the language101 experience in general. First, how quickly do people in general learn enough to become fluent? Second, will the person learning eventually start thinking in their new language? The second one is important to me because I think that is the point where you truly “own” a new language.

These are both very good questions. First and foremost I don’t have a solid update on Japanese. Parts of development move quickly while others move slow. Since this is a small company we have several factors working for us in the software development areas that larger, fully funded companies do not have to face. We hope to have the first lessons for Japanese ready to study by the end of the year. Brent is making a trip to Japan to make some solid teacher contacts that we hope to integrate soon!

In general Language101.com suggests studying for 30 minutes at least once daily in order to complete most languages in appx 4-6 months. Completing any language should get you into a beginner’s conversational status of speaking your new language. Fluency is determined by the grace in which a person can express their emotional state of being in any language. Most native language speakers require several years of university level study in order to be ‘fluent’. Beginning to think in a language starts immediately with Language101.com’s methodology – this is because you can learn phrases that are useful in your everyday life. Of course in the beginning you will need to translate quickly in your head the phrase you want to say until you get used to thinking the things you are wanting to say. Having a fluent command of a language requires a LOT of work and study, far more than just a simple 30 minute daily practice will offer. Moving to a place where immersion can happen facilitates this much more rapidly since the primary source of information input will be from the language that is desired to know more intimately.

Fluency also requires a bit of ‘slang’ awareness. What is proper, what is informal and what is edgy? It will be a long time before all those different layers overlap and become apparently clear to you where they are. The best way to become fluent will be to take an extended (4-6 months) stay in a country where your new language is primarily spoken. Get away from anyone that speaks English and your mind will have only two places to turn – back on itself in escape or forwards towards using the new language in its entirety.

Hello. I found you guys through the Pimsleur review. I am Korean but I can barely speak my own language. I was going to buy the $10 program from Pimsleur but now I am having second thoughts. I also take Spanish classes because I am in middle school and I really want to become fluent in both Spanish and Korean if not more. What should I do? Should I buy a lesson from Pimsleur to learn Korean or should I learn Spanish from you guys. I don’t know if this made sense but thanks :)Also, please add Korean to your list of languages!

Thanks for expressing your desire to learn new languages! Language101.com currently offers a complete set of Spanish lessons. We intend to add Korean at some point yet have other language projects that need to be finished first. If you plan on learning Korean eventually and are not in a time crunch I’d suggest looking into our All Language Super Pack as it will offer you Spanish and (when it is eventually developed) Korean as well as all other languages that become available.

The best thing for you to do is to determine where your priorities are and focus on learning that language first. Once that is complete refigure your priorities and then determine where to go next.

Had some little knowledge of french but will want to make progress from beginners level up to advance before I can put a smile. Please how can I access or get the complete super pack from beginners to advance level and how much will it go for. Thank You. I love Language 101.com

Thanks for letting use know that you want to learn other languages too! We definitely have Korean in our sights although we aren’t making any new commitments until we finish Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.

YouTube: Music (see below) and video clips. Maybe your favorite show was dubbed in the language of your choice. Maybe you can find clips of a sitcom or soap opera you can watch. The more you’re exposed to pronunciation of native speakers (even if you understand only a handful of words at first, if that!) the better.
Music: If you’re learning a European language, look up Eurovision on YouTube and Wikipedia (especially the early years). Eurovision is a yearly international European song competition, and if you have a list of entries from Wikipedia, you can look up the songs that the country entered with, and listen to them. Although it’s more common in recent years to use English, if you go back just a little, most of the songs will be in the target language. Also, find a website that discusses modern music in your target language and look up the videos. Sing along!

Jag alskar Sverige! I know you have had a lot of requests, and it probably takes a long time to develop a language software, but it would be really nice if you made a Swedish programme. I am in my tween years and have been trying to teach myself with GoSwedish (maybe you’ve heard of it?) videos on YouTube, since I learn mostly by ear, but it isn’t really working out. I really love the positive attitude that this website has, and I’m sure I would consider buying a Swedish programme.(if there was one :-)) I already know French…. Does that help?

Thanks for expressing your enthusiasm to learn Swedish! Although it’s not high on the priorities Swedish is definitely in the radar for future developments. Until then keep practicing with whatever tool you might find! Did you know Pimsleur offers a Swedish program? Check it out here: